Thursday, June 26, 2008

Happy five year anniversary to the major decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on Lawrence v. Texas. On June 26th 2003 the high court struck down the anti-sodomy law by a 6-3 vote officially decriminalizing homosexual sex within the United States.

3 comments:

In reading the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, written by Justice Kennedy, I think my favorite part is the last couple of paragraphs that Kennedy wrote:

"The case...involve[s] two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. 'It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.' Casey, supra, at 847. The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.

...[T]hose who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment...knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."

The entire decision (including the accompanying dissent) can be found at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=02-102#opinion1